For those Democrats rejoicing that Ed Gillespie has taken his TV ads off the air, enjoy the next 36 hours because after that…

Mark Warner is about to have the worst two and a half weeks of his political life starting on Saturday when Gillespie goes back up on the air with ads targeting Warner’s involvement in #BRIBESTORM where he suggested a quid pro quo of a federal judicial appointment for the daughter of a sitting Virginia state senator in exchange for that senator not resigning and handing the majority to Virginia Republicans. Don’t forget, Bob McDonnell was just convicted on a number of charges where there was not nearly as clear of a quid pro quo as there is in this case.

Let’s revisit the 2006 polls since 2014 is shaping up to be a mirror image of that year in a lot of ways. In particular, let’s look at the polls from the George Allen vs. Jim Webb race. Jim Webb led in only TWO POLLS all year (and those were in mid-August / early Sept. during the midst of “macaca”) until a poll conducted Oct. 20-23, 2006, whereas George Allen held the lead in 25 other polls and the two were tied in just one. After Oct. 20, Allen only led in four polls while Webb led in eight (and again the two were tied in one.) Eight years ago today, George Allen led Jim Webb 50-47 in a Zogby Interactive poll.

The quid pro quo offer from U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) of a federal judicial appointment for the daughter of former state Sen. Phil Puckett (D) in exchange for him not resigning and handing control of the Virginia Senate to the GOP continues to boil.

Has he been subpoenaed to provide documents, phone records for example? His campaign won’t say. Was he represented by counsel during the FBI questioning? Did he provide information orally or in writing under oath? No answer. Quite simply, the voters have no idea whether their senator is in any real legal jeopardy.

In Virginia, Sen. Mark Warner (D) has been hit with a nasty story involving the possible promise of a judicial post for a relative of a state senator to keep the official from resigning, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see this contest decided by single digits. Virginia, after all, is a highly competitive state.

This constitutes clear attempted bribery of an elected official. This isn’t simply horse trading for a vote. This is a direct quid pro quo — you don’t resign and we give your daughter an appointment to head a plum government agency. Gov. McAuliffe’s Chief of Staff AND Gov. McAuliffe himself must be investigated over this.

The following is the transcript of a voicemail that Paul Reagan, Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s chief of staff, left on Democrat Phillip A. Puckett’s cell phone in the days leading up to Puckett’s resignation from the state Senate in June:

“Hey Senator. This is Paul Reagan again. I just wanted to bounce one idea off you. I know there was a lot of frustration with your daughter, not, you know, getting a judgeship or something. if there’s something that we can do for her, I mean, you know, we have a couple of big agencies here that we still need agency heads. We could potentially, potentially, subject to approval of the governor and so forth, you know, the department of mines, minerals and energy could be available. So we would be very eager to accommodate her, if, if that would be helpful in keeping you in the senate. We, we would basically do anything. We just need you really, we need you for the rest of your term and beyond, but in the immediate future, we need you to help us get this Medicaid deal through and I think we’ve got a way to do it. So anyway, please let’s keep all this confidential. Call me 703-850—–. Thank you sir. Bye.”

If what former Gov. Bob McDonnell did was a crime, then this surely must be investigated and prosecuted as this goes far beyond what was found in that case.

Not quite 11 months from the date he was elected until this bribery scandal broke. Can’t say that I’m surprised (or that we didn’t warn you that this would happen.) This is just in keeping with the way McAuliffe has always done things and harkens back to the era of Clinton corruption where he was a central figure.

Reactions to the Bob McDonnell verdict our pouring in, and there’s one in particular (from many of his defenders) that I find completely flabbergasting.

The ex-Governor’s defenders are calling him a “man of integrity.” My jaw hits the table each time I see that.

Folks, Bob McDonnell spent all of 2009 insisting he would not raise taxes. He blasted his opponent (Creigh Deeds) for even considering it, and rode the issue to a landslide win in November of that year.

In the last year of his term (as it happens, last year) he broke that promise in spectacular fashion, ramming through the largest tax increase in at least 40 years.

Even then, he skirted the truth. He insisted the tax hike was for relieving commuter congestion, but in fact his top priority was actually a parallel road to US 460 that wasn’t needed for traffic relief – and which the Army Corps of Engineers said he couldn’t build anyway (Bacon’s Rebellion).

So please, spare me the “man of integrity” nonsense. If you want to complain about the federal decision to prosecute McDonnell (as opposed to other Virginians) or the bizarre nature of the “honest service fraud” statute, that’s one thing.

With greater and greater frequency I am reading about horrific stories of police misconduct. The worst of it is that these officers act as if they are above the law. The worst offender’s are typically Police and not Sheriff’s Deputies. The militarization of American law enforcement is the apparent culprit. In 1972 there were some 200 SWAT raids, last year the number was over 50000. With militarization comes the inevitable us v. them attitude. Law enforcement see’s itself not as part of the citizenry but apart from it.

I am writing today about the killing of Kelly Thomas. Thomas was homeless. Thomas was a schizophrenic with some severe cognitive issues. Ramos knew Thomas from several previous interactions with him. Ramos knew Thomas was a threat to no one. Officer Ramos targeted Thomas. Officer Ramos found Thomas, and used a pretext to set into motion a series of events that lead to his death. The chief one being the brutal beating of Thomas, whom Ramos outweighed by 80 pounds and got an assist from five other officers.

The killing of Kelly Thomas by Fullerton police in 2011 was a brutal affair, DA Raukaukas provides a apt description of the events in the video above. Thomas was threatened by a cop who knew him. Thomas was killed by a cop who previously had told his fellow cops that he was angling to get Thomas. Immediately prior to the beating Officer Ramos, who lead the charge to destroy Thomas had this interchange with Thomas.

Ramos: You see these fists

Thomas: Yeah, what about them

Ramos: They’re getting ready to fuck you up!

An officer of the law in America is behaving like some thug from the worst third world dictatorship. This did not make headlines across the nation? We have been seeing a gradual rise in such violence over the years. Like the frog who is slowly boiled … we missed the fact that somewhere along the line, we the People of The United States have been cooked.

Kelly Thomas is heard clearly pleading for the police to stop. He is clearly not a threat. He is begging for help, and Ramos was only hitting him all the harder for it. Some of his last words were to his father, …

‘Daddy, help! They’re killing me!’

We as a nation have become numb to the brutality and the lethality of our own law enforcement. The Fourth Estate has been by and large asleep at the switch, kudos to CNN for reporting on this incident. Several questions come to mind. The first is why were only two officers charged in the killing of Thomas? The video shows six police offers beating and tazing him? The second one being why are the police involved in this event not fired from the force? The media have been co-opted completely by one party and have bought into the narrative that the job of Law Enforcement is becoming ever more dangerous. It is safer being a law enforcement officer today than itever has been

Forty-six officers were killed in traffic related accidents, and 33 were killed by firearms. The number of firearms deaths fell 33 percent in 2013 and was the lowest since 1887

What we have however is the number of American’s killed by the policing is hovering at over 400. More people have been killed in the US since 9/11 by the police than solders in the Middle East by the Taliban. The police are supposed to be a force for justice, and should be our protectors. This is not the case. The result has been a number of tragedies as innocents are ground under the excessive force wielded by the state. Looking at Kelly Thomas’ face one can see what happens to you when the state is running amok.

Over the weekend, what started as an argument among global warming skeptics became a dramatic indictment of temperature reporting from the United States Historic Climate Network.

Anthony Watts (Watts Up With That) and Judith Curry (Climate Etc.) provide the details on Steve Goddard’s initial attempt to claim that a large swath of temperature “raw” data was in fact estimations. Watts is particularly self-aware in acknowledging why he had trouble with Goddard’s assertions, while Curry ties it to the underlying data problems.

Both then get to the meat of the matter: Paul Homewood’s revelation that data in not one, but two locations were “adjusted” to create a warming trend of 1-2 degrees that never shows up in the actual data.

Meanwhile, Watts also reveals this stunner: as many as one in four stations “reporting” weather data are in fact shut down, and “reporting” estimated figures derived from neighboring – and in theory still operating – stations.

Curry – who does not consider herself a skeptic on global warming, but is rare in that she does not simply dismiss those who are – summed up with this is so important:

“I mean, I’m not a scientist either, but I’ve got this guy, John Holdren, he’s a scientist,” Obama added to laughter. “I’ve got a bunch of scientists at NASA and I’ve got a bunch of scientists at EPA.”

Who all rely on the data prepared by his bunch of scientists at NOAA.

…and if that data is problematic, all of those scientists have a serious problem.

It’s easy to claim “consensus” when you suppress dissenting voices (Times of London):

Research which heaped doubt on the rate of global warming was deliberately suppressed by scientists because it was “less than helpful” to their cause, it was claimed last night.

In an echo of the infamous “Climategate” scandal at the University of East Anglia, one of the world’s top academic journals rejected the work of five experts after a reviewer privately denounced it as “harmful”.

These were the exact words of the unnamed “scientist” (yes, I used scare quotes) who rejected the piece:

Actually it is harmful as it opens the door for oversimplified claims of “errors” and worse from the climate sceptics (UK sp) media side.

Oh yes. Heaven forbid we get oversimplified claims from the media. Oh, wait.

Following the revelation that the Senior Vice President of CGI, the company that won the no-bid contract to develop the $630 million (and counting) debacle that is Healthcare.gov, was a classmate of Michelle Obama’s from Princeton, Obama defenders quickly rushed out to say that she didn’t know Toni Townes-Whitley.

Today, there are roughly 1,300 undergrad students in each class at Princeton for a total of around 5,200. In 1980 the black population in the U.S. was 11.7%, growing to 12.1% in 1990. Even if the black population at Princeton in 1985 mirrored that of the general population, there would only be roughly 150 African-American classmates in her class. Given the fact that even today the Princeton student body is only 8% black, that only translates into just over 100 students per graduating class.

Now think back 30 years. There is no way that the Princeton student body was 8% African American in 1985. Even if it were and we were to assume the student body was 50% male and 50% female, that narrows the universe of black women in the Princeton Class of 1985 down to no more than 50 (given the time period that we are talking about, I would be surprised if there were than 30 in her class.) That universe surely would shrink even smaller once you get down to those who were members of both the OBU and TWC.

Anyone still want to maintain that Michelle Obama didn’t know this woman? Looks like crony capitalism applies to the friends of the First Lady, too…

The fall-out for Democrats from the NVTC Tech PAC endorsement of Ken Cuccinelli and their subsequent reaction is only just beginning. Let’s revisit what The Washington Post had to say about it:

But e-mails obtained by The Post make clear that the lobbying effort on McAuliffe’s behalf was intense.

“I urge you to stop any endorsement of Cuccinelli,” state Sen. Janet D. Howell (D-Fairfax), told PAC leaders Friday in an e-mail. “The ramifications of his being endorsed will be huge within the Senate Democratic caucus. . . . The response [from legislators] will be frigid and doors will be closed [when the council seeks help with its legislative agenda]. Achieving the goals of NVTC will be difficult to impossible.”

The response [from legislators] will be frigid and doors will be closed [when the council seeks help with its legislative agenda]. Achieving the goals of NVTC will be difficult to impossible.

Next, let’s visit the 51st House Dist. where Democrat Reed Heddleston is taking on Republican Del. Rich Anderson. Heddleston has been seeking contributions from state-level lobbyists representing different companies and industries. Apparently, like McAuliffe and Senate Democrats, he doesn’t take rejection well. In at least one instance where he was refused a contribution, he reportedly erupted in anger with words to the effect that he was going to win and that person (whose name we are witholding) had passed their last piece of legislation in the House of Delegates.

What do both of these incidents have in common? Specific threats against specific industries and/or companies that their legislative priorities would be deep-sixed if they did not endorse and/or contribute to certain Democrat candidates regardless of the merit of their legislative proposals.

For those who feel that this type of thing seems vaguely familiar, there is a term for it: “Pay-to-Play.” Or, to paint a more vivid picture with a recent example of it…

A different, but no less intriguing, angle to this “pay-to-play” culture of political corruption is manifesting itself over in the race for the 31st Dist. where Democrat Jeremy McPike is taking on Republican Del. Scott Lingamfelter. Willie Deutsch has written an extensive piece based upon news reports about McPike firing an African-American whistleblower who was raising questions about a project for the City of Alexandria where McPike works as its Director of General Services. The story so far centers on sketchy invoices approved by McPike for phantom materials totaling $2 million from a contractor. The whistleblower successfully sued the City of Alexandria and McPike for $450,000 over his termination.

What hasn’t been reported yet is how this all relates to McPike’s pet project of the Alexandria Farmers Market. McPike, looking to burnish his credentials with his employer, sought out companies and individuals to contribute their time and materials pro bono for this project at no cost to the City of Alexandria. Who was one of the contractors that McPike was going after for this project? The same one that the whistleblower was raising questions about. What was the price for their participation? Draw your own conclusion. Pay-to-play…

None of this is politics as usual. At a minimum, these activities are borderline criminal. A special prosecutor should be appointed to investigate Sens. Howell, Saslaw and Favola to determine whether they have broken any laws relating to bribery, extortion or illegal gratuities as there is a very specific quid pro quo involved here. The same goes for Heddleston should any of the individuals that he threatened with such retaliatory action wish to publicly step forward. Undoubtedly, we haven’t heard the last of the McPike case, either.

Del. Joe Morrissey (D-Henrico) is under investigation by the Henrico Commonwealth’s Attorney office

Sources close to the investigation said Henrico police were summoned to a residence Morrissey owns near Virginia Center Commons on Friday night and were able to locate a teen from Chesterfield. Officers took the girl to her father, who was waiting nearby.

Move over Bob Filner, Eliot Spitzer and Anthony Weiner, it looks like Virginia Democrats have their own “War on Women” problems.

Over the last year, I’ve been on a bit of a roller coaster regarding Attorney General and Republican gubernatorial nominee Ken Cuccinelli. His waffling on tax increases soured me, badly, but his education reform plan grudgingly won me back. Still, I could hardly say I’m enthusiastic.

Then Michael Mann decided to whine about Cuccinelli’s investigation of his (Mann’s) time at UVA…and sudddenly I remembered why I liked Cuccinelli so much in the first place.

Mann’s column (Richmond Times-Dispatch) was largely refuted by Christopher Monckton (Watts Up With That), but there were some comments by the former that slipped past Monckton without challenge. So I figured I’d do some mopping up.

The first problem comes when Mann shifts away from the ad hominem attacks on his critics and actually tries to defend himself and his “hockey stick” – a reference to his historical graph that claimed temperatures were relatively stable until about 50 years .

Despite Monckton’s rambling attack, the hockey stick most certainly has not been disproved. The highest scientific body in the nation, the National Academy of Sciences, affirmed our research findings in an exhaustive independent review published in June 2006.

The only other of Mann’s claim that Monckton missed was this pair (emphasis added):

In what is the most personally offensive part of Monckton’s letter, he says that references to climate “ ‘deniers’ and ‘denialists’ would be illegal in Europe as being anti-Jewish, racialist hate-speech.” This is particularly troubling to me both because I am Jewish and because it does not make any sense. No one is attempting to subpoena or prosecute climate change deniers. We are simply trying to make sure the public understands what the overwhelming majority of scientists believe is happening.

The “overwhelming majority” line (typical of global warming alarmists) took a bad hit earlier this month, but it is the previous claim that requires more attention. Perhaps Mann himself does not know, but Richard Parncutt, Professor at the University of Graz (Australia) has not only called for “deniers” to be prosecuted, butexecuted (Andrew Bolt). From what I can tell, Parncutt has since reversed course on his Final Solution, but it was yet another example of alarmists becoming unhinged. As for Mann himself, the folks at WUWT have been keeping track of his invective and nastiness (thought I should note he steers clear of a Final Solution).

In the end, I get the feeling that Mann, knowing that Cuccinelli is trailing in the polls, is taking the opportunity to kick him when he’s down. For me, that’s all the more reason to back Ken Cuccinelli for Governor.

Michael Mann made his mark in global warming alarmism with the use of dendrochronological data (a.k.a. tree-ring data) as a proxy for temperatures going back over 1000 years. He has clung to it despite its obvious ignorance of the Medieval Warm Period (to say nothing of how it deviated from recent history so much he had to truncate it from his analysis – hence the term “Mike’s Nature Trick”).

Well, as it turns out, the tree-ring data his a problematic bias (WUWT):

Basically, older trees grow slower, and that mimics the temperature signal paleo researchers like Mann look for. Unless you correct for this issue, you end up with a false temperature signal, like a hockey stick in modern times. Separating a valid temperature signal from the natural growth pattern of the tree becomes a larger challenge with this correction.

Trees that grow slower create lower temperature proxies, and thus can mask higher temperatures in periods like the MWP.

Organization Studies has released a peer-reviewed survey of geoscientists and engineers (Forbes, via WUWT) and found the global warming alarmists’ claims of a “consensus” to be way off the mark.

Only 36 percent of geoscientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a global warming crisis, according to a survey reported in the peer-reviewed Organization Studies. By contrast, a strong majority of the 1,077 respondents believe that nature is the primary cause of recent global warming and/or that future global warming will not be a very serious problem.

I’ll leave it to the reader to define “strong”, but 51% of those surveyed either believed Nature is the dominant controller of climate (24%) or refused to say the matter is settled one way or another (27%). All of them (plus an additional 5%) have no use for the alarmists’ insistence that disaster awaits without massive carbon regulation.

[The National Climatic Data Center’s] adjustments made the dust bowl period cooler, while post 1995 had no adjustments applied. This results in a temperature trend that is steeper because the past is cooler than the present. The only problem is that it isn’t what the data actually recorded then.

I think maybe we need to coin a new term for NOAA NCDC – ‘dust bowl deniers’. Yes it appears there is man made warming underway but the men are in Asheville, North Carolina at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center.

The particular victim in this case was New York City, which suddenly had a cooler 1930s than any survivor of that decade would remember.

As if yesterday’s revelations weren’t enough, a member of the British health systems Care Quality Commission – the folks who are supposed to make sure the government monopoly health system is on the up-and-up – admitted to more rot beneath the surface (Telegraph, UK).

…one of the CQC’s former senior inspectors told The Daily Telegraph that investigations into other potential scandals had been “stopped, diluted, or the findings buried” — because senior officials were intent on suppressing bad news.

Dr Heather Wood, who led the investigation which uncovered the Mid Staffordshire Hospital Trust scandal, in which up to 1,200 people died, accused the CQC of operating under a “culture of fear, which mimicked the very worst aspects of the NHS”.

She said: “I think that their whole intention was to suppress any more stories which might be in the Mid-Staffs league.”

As for yesterday’s news – that the CQC erased its own report into horrid conditions at Morecambe Bay – the Commission refused to reveal who was behind the deletion, citing “data protection laws” – an excuse the Information Commissioner quickly flushed down the tubes.

For the uninitiated, Britain’s National Health Service has become woven into its sense of national identity (much like Canada’s own government monopoly), as well as an inspiration to lefties in the United States. It is becoming more and more clear that the NHS’ reputation was far, far better than was deserved.

As Robertscare takes hold next year, most of the left will respond to any and all deficiencies in it by insisting on an NHS-like system. It behooves us all to remember what has been revealed across the pond over the last few months.

“When Barack Obama announced Aneesh Chopra as his technology czar in 2009, President Obama said the position would include promoting technological innovation to help ‘keep our nation secure,’” said Jackson for Lieutenant Governor campaign manager Greg Aldridge. “As more information becomes public concerning the government’s efforts to monitor its own citizens in violation of the Fourth Amendment, Virginians have a right to know: What did Aneesh Chopra know about the PRISM program and other federal government efforts to archive our telephone conversations, e-mail and internet activity? If Aneesh Chopra can not stand up to his boss in the White House for the privacy of American citizens, how can Virginians trust him as Lieutenant Governor?”The news regarding the PRISM program and Verizon turning over customer data has spotlighted the issue of the federal government’s spying on the phone records, email communications, and internet activity of the American people.

I can hear the defense now. “No! The county’s new logo has a large box that is light blue and a smaller box that is dark blue. This is completely different in that the big one is dark blue and the smaller one is light blue!”

Star Trek: Let That Be Your Last Battlefield

Bele: It is obvious to the most simpleminded that Lokai is of an inferior breed.Spock: The obvious visual evidence, Commissioner, is that he is of the same breed as yourself.Bele: Are you blind, Commander Spock? Well, look at me. Look at me!Kirk: You’re black on one side and white on the other.Bele: I am black on the right side.Kirk: I fail to see the significant difference.Bele: Lokai is white on the right side. All of his people are white on the right side.

It would seem to me that Kirk and Spock are more representative of the residents of the county than these feuding aliens.

Prince William County’s is located in Northern Virginia. The County’s borders encompass 360 square miles. It is a destination for families and businesses looking to locate near Washington, DC without the high cost of real estate and taxes. We are located south and west of Washington, DC and are bordered on the east by the Potomac River.

Within Prince William’s boundaries are the independent cities of Manassas and Manassas Park. Federal land accounts for approximately 18% (41,600 acres) of the total area and includes: Quantico Marine Corps Base, Manassas National Battlefield Park, Prince William Forest Park, Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge and Featherstone National Wildlife Refuge.

UPDATE: How does a little-known design firm in Michigan, one that only has 27 likes on its Facebook page as of 5/28/13 and only a handful of tweets in the last year, land such a big deal designing the logo for Virginia’s second largest county and one of the nation’s wealthiest when their past experience has been limited to mousepads, businesscards and the web site for Mr. Sponge? There has to be a connection to someone in county government here. Otherwise, how would anyone in the county know this company even exists???

UPDATE 2: Definitely has a link to county personnel. Three of the employees at this firm are listed on Linked In as 3rd degree connections for me through one of the supervisors I’m connected to on there. He is connected to someone who is connected to them.

UPDATE 4: And this just in from a trusted source who is well-versed in this field:

Either someone called them and asked them to design one design, or they paid way more than that. Couldn’t get it at that rate if they rfped it. Responding to bid, or making revisions would have put it up to $5k

Remember when I noted that three scientists who were part of a paper decreeing a “consensus” on global warming told Watts Up With That that their positions had been misrepresented?

Well, Andrew at Popular Technology found four more who took issue with their classifications. Ironically, the one most sympathetic to AGW theory (Dr. Richard Tol) was the nastiest to one of the “consensus” paper’s authors (Dana Nuccitelli), telling Nuccitelli, “I think your data are a load of crap.”

Just how many people will be snared by the Stewart campaign’s knuckle headed Virginians for Limited Government scheme to subvert the Commonwealth’s campaign finance laws? Now the RPV General Counsel appears to have been placed in a position of having a conflict of interest according to Breitbart.